The
poor global economy of the last year meant that profits were down for
just about every major computer manufacturer and hardware maker in
the industry. Consumers and corporations held onto tight funds rather
than spending on upgrades and new computers. One of the few bright
spots was in cheap consumer devices like netbooks and server
processors where power savings offset the cost of the upgrade for
some companies.

With the worst of the economic crisis
hopefully over, consumers and businesses are starting to spend again
on computers. Surprisingly, many consumers and corporations are
buying in the higher-end range of the market rather than the low-end
with netbooks. With the increased spending in the higher-end market
Intel has boomed. The company posted its earnings figured yesterday
and reported a massive jump in profit of over 400% compared to the
same month in 2009.

Profit at Intel was a massive $2.4
billion or 43 cents per share. The exact growth percentage
was 433% reports CNET
News.
The 43 cents per share earnings significantly eclipsed what analysts
expected Intel to post at 38 cents per share. Q1 2010 revenue
was $10.3 billion, a 44% increase from Q1
2009. CEO Paul Otellini stated that it was the best quarter ever
for Intel.

Analyst Doug Freedman from Broadpoint AmTech said,
"Consumer and corporate are spending more on horsepower. They're
buying high-priced machines in a time that you would think budgets
would be tight."

The big factor in the whopping profits
for the quarter was in mobile processor revenue. There were massive
shortages of Intel's new 2010 line of Core processors due to demand
from computer builders that are just now easing. With shortages,
Intel was still able to turn record profits.

Profit reports
were not all Intel had up its sleeves this week. The company has also
announced a new Atom-based
SoC codenamed Tunnel
Creek.
Tunnel
Creek
is aimed at IP phones, printers, and in-vehicle infotainment systems
for cars and trucks. The new SoC integrates an Atom processor core,
memory controller hub, graphics engine, and video engine into one
highly integrated chip. The first mass use of the new SoC will be
Chinese carmaker HawTai. The company will use the new SoC in an in
dash infotainment system in some of its vehicles.

"Intel
is committed to focus our technologies on innovative new applications
in China," said Doug Davis, corporate vice president and general
manager of Intel's embedded and communications group. "We're
cooperating closely with local companies in China to provide smarter
and better connected computing solutions for cars, homes, businesses
that provide infrastructure to power a more mobile and faster
Internet experience."

The new SoC will allow
companies to create PCI Express compliant devices that directly
connect to the chip for the first time. Intel claims that this
feature will increase flexibility for embedded applications.

Intel
also shared some of its vision for the future this week. Intel talked
a bit about its next
generation Sandy
Bridgeprocessors
set for production late in 2010. The new processors will be
constructed with the second-generation Intel Hi-K 32nm process
technology. The processors will also be the first to support Intel
Advanced Vector Extension (Intel AVX) instructions. Sandy
Bridge will
also support Intel AES New instructions.

Intel AVX accelerates
the trend towards floating point intensive computation in general
applications like 3D modeling and scientific simulation. Intel AES-NI
is a set of software instructions that accelerates encryption and
decryption. Sandy
Bridge
will also have Intel's sixth generation graphics core with
acceleration for floating point, video, and other processor intensive
applications.

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

Would it not stand to reason that part of the reason for Intels increased profits has to do with the new Win7 OS? Usually sales spike but with the recession perhaps it just took a little longer then it usually does.

Regardless, I hope AMD posts some half ways decent numbers itself. Be nice to see as they have a pretty good lineup as well.